


Sponsored Content

by CharmingMonsters



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Crack, Figure skating is expensive, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, M/M, Other, Pay them bills, Savant Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 18:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11719665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharmingMonsters/pseuds/CharmingMonsters
Summary: Figure Skating is expensive, but sponsorships aren't always an easy way to pay the bills.





	Sponsored Content

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: this takes place in a world where, like in the show, homophobia doesn’t exist and figure skating is a more popular sport than it is here (sadly!). Hence the lucrative endorsement deals (and future ads featuring hot male couples).
> 
> Inspired in part by this tumblr post about Victor's financial savvy as demonstrated in the show: https://shysweetthing.tumblr.com/post/162796933245/victor-nikiforov-is-a-financial-genius-you-asked

Yuri Plisetsky had decided a long time ago that Victor Nikiforov was an idiot savant – emphasis on _idiot_. 

When it came to the ice, the man was naturally talented in a way that made Yuri grit his teeth in jealous rage. When it came to everything else about life, he was utterly hopeless. What sort of adult needed step-by-step instructions to operate a toaster oven, for fuck’s sake? And then melted a sandwich onto the rack because he didn’t realize that the plastic should be removed first? He’d once seen Victor spend ten minutes trapped at a bathroom sink because he couldn’t figure out how to operate the manual taps, only to be equally flummoxed by the absence of automated hand dryers. Removed from his cocoon of high-end luxury, the man was regularly lapped by toddlers who had a better grasp on their surroundings.

Barring a global emergency where the only way to dispatch zombies was via a well-executed quad flip, Victor Nikiforov was the most useless human on the planet. 

“Yurio!” the sing-song voice shattered the peace of Yuri’s morning warm-up, making him regret for the two hundred and fifteenth time the Barcelona win that had somehow morphed into this nightmare scenario where Victor was not only back training at their St. Petersburg rink, but had also brought along his katsudon, ensuring that Yuri was subjected to utterly vile exhibitions any time he entered a room without first shouting out a ten-second warning.

“That’s not my name!” Yuri grumbled reflexively. “I only have three weeks until Europeans, asshole, and I don’t intend to waste a single second of my training time on your nonsense!”

“Yuuuuri,” whined the older man, draping himself over the rink barrier like the human octopus that he was. No, scratch that: Yuri had seen a YouTube video of an octopus escaping from a tank once. That comparison was an insult to octopi. “If you don’t review these new endorsement deals, how are you going to pay for your flight to the Europeans? Not to mention your hotel room and Yakov’s fees.”

The reminder of just how expensive skating was made Yuri want to wince, although he covered it up with an oversized shrug. “Endorsements? You don’t know what you’re talking about, old man. Yakov does all that stuff for me.”

“Not anymore!” said Victor in that same annoying voice. Yuri had no idea why a grown man would want to sound like a constipated Disney Princess, but that wasn’t really his concern. “Part of my deal with Yakov for rink time was that I would take over endorsement opportunities for you, Mila and the other senior skaters.”

“I didn’t agree to that!” spat Yuri, shoving his hands into his pockets before realizing he wasn’t actually wearing his hoodie. 

Victor just smirked and hummed _you can’t always get what you want_.

“Fine!” Yuri shouted, making sure he sounded as furious as possible about agreeing. “But I’m not doing anything stupid! Or embarrassing!”

“No, no, I would _never_ ,” said Victor in a voice that meant he absolutely would. “The sponsors want to get things rolling before the Europeans, so I’d like to review products and contracts with you today. What time are you done training?”

Yuri rolled his eyes, already hating whatever dumb idea Victor wanted to discuss.

* * * 

“This isn't dumb at all,” said Yuri, concealing his surprise under a layer of snark. “Did you seriously set this up?”

“I noticed that your exhibition gala performance footage went viral in America,” explained Victor, sliding through the images on his phone’s screen. “Apparently you’re very popular with angsty teenagers? I can’t imagine why. Anyway, this clothing brand focuses strongly on that demographic, so I reached out to see if they’d be interested in a collaboration.”

Impatient, Yuri grabbed the phone from Victor’s hands and started sorting through the images himself. The clothing on display was so cool, there was no other word for it. Leopard-print hoodies and t-shirts with fierce tigers, fingerless gloves like the ones Otabek had worn during his gala skate (the memory of which made him blush, just a bit), backless tank tops and a whole line of cool jewelry with tiger and ice themes. Some of it was embarrassing, like the t-shirt with an artwork of him and Beka on a motorcycle with the printed hashtag #relationshipgoals underneath, but a lot of it was stuff Yuri would totally wear.

“What did you say this company was again?”

“Hawt Gothik?” said Victor, a bit uncertain as he flipped through the stack of papers he’d brought along to their meeting in the skater’s break room. “It doesn’t really matter. Basically, they want to do a clothing line under your name. You can choose which items you want to include from the samples they’ve sent, but you need to pick a minimum of fifteen pieces and a maximum of twenty-three. They’ll have samples produced within a week and we’ll do a photoshoot here in St. Petersburg before the Europeans.”

“Seriously? That fast?”

“You have the public’s attention, for now,” said Victor, a faintly world-weary note in his voice. “That’s more fickle than you realize just yet.”

“Whatever, old man,” said Yuri, busy making mental notes of which pieces he absolutely needed to include in his collection. Idly, he wondered how some of this stuff would look on Beka. Maybe he could score some free samples for his friend? Victor seemed to get tons of free clothes from the fashion brands that sponsored him. Yuri thought that would be pretty cool, so long as the clothing wasn’t the lame stuff Victor was always drowning in. “So I have to appear in ads? Anything else?”

“They’ll provide you with everything from the collection, and there’s a schedule for when you’d need to post on social media wearing it. Depending on the pieces you select, they may want Otabek Altin to participate in the photoshoot,” said Victor, one finger on his lips as he flipped through the contract with his other hand. “That would be a separate contract and they’d cover both his payment and costs to fly here for the shoot.”

His best friend could get paid to come hang out with him for a couple of days? This deal was getting better and better. “What if he doesn’t want to?”

“The contract’s not contingent on his participation,” said Victor. “After all, you’re the gold medalist. Otabek didn’t even podium at the GPF.”

“He will at World’s!” said Yuri, bristling at the implied insult to his friend. “What’s the catch?”

“You’ll probably miss an afternoon of training, but I’ll make sure they work around your schedule as much as possible,” said Victor, pointedly not looking in Yuri’s direction. “You’ll have right of refusal on advertising imagery, provided you reply to samples within 48 hours. They have the right to produce a second line if you medal at World’s or have another viral video. The definitions for all this are in the contract, but don’t worry, it’s very favorable to you. I had my personal lawyer do the final draft.”

Victor started to ramble on, about residuals and other jargon that Yuri promptly tuned out. Everyone at the rink knew Victor had done well for himself on the sponsorship side, well before he earned his five consecutive championships. Yuri had always assumed that was entirely down to Victor’s genetic luck at being born stupidly photogenic, but the more he talked, the more Yuri had to question that assumption. This stuff was complicated, but Victor understood it inside and out. He’d worked the system at his peak and was set to spend the rest of his life pursuing whatever ridiculous whim flitted through his vapid mind. Yuri wanted that kind of success. He’d do something a hell of a lot cooler with it than being gross all over the place. Like riding motorcycles though the mountains around Almaty, maybe…

“Yurioooo.” A sickly-sweet voice broke through his pleasant daydreams, bringing a scowl to Yuri’s face. “You weren’t listening to me~”

“Yeah, I got it. A bunch of boring legal stuff, then some photos and I get paid. Is that it?”

“Not quite,” said Victor, sliding a small piece of paper over to Yuri. “First, here’s the initial payment they’ve proposed for merchandise and advertising rights.”

Yuri stared at the paper, his entire vocabulary of swear words pushed out of his mind for a painfully long moment. That number was… big. Not huge, maybe, by Victor’s standards, but certainly more than anyone had ever suggested Yuri might be worth in his entire life. The number on the page was embarrassing, caused a humiliating flush to break out across his pale cheeks.

“Are you serious?!” 

“Entirely,” said Victor. “But don’t worry, I’ll get you more when the contract renews next year.”

Yuri realized he’d been wrong. Victor was an idiot savant, yes, utterly useless except for two skills: figure skating and sponsorship deals. On the later topic, Yuri would follow Victor to the grave.

* * *

Two weeks later, missing one of his precious pre-Europeans training sessions to spend an afternoon in a photo studio with Beka, Victor and an absurd number of stylists, Yuri finally figured out the catch.

“I am not wearing that stupid thing!”

“It’s in the contract,” Victor explained, waving the _officially licensed Yuri Plisetsky Cat Ears Headband_ around like it wasn’t the most disturbing thing on the planet. “Your fans are already spending money on these, it only makes sense to offer them a way to do that while also supporting you.”

“Fuck you!”

Beka plucked the headband from Victor’s hand and placed it gently on Yuri’s head. “We all make sacrifices for the ice, Yura. You are a solider. You can survive this.”

Yuri had been right. That backless tank top looked absolutely fan-fucking-tastic on Beka.

He burnt every single one of the ads they sent him with the cat ears. 

(he kept the ones of Otabek, though).

**Author's Note:**

> Because you know if Welcome to the Madness existed in real life, Hot Topic would be selling those gloves within a week :) 
> 
> Hoping this will be a series, but we'll see if I can keep motivation up?


End file.
